warehouse uses lively wood pillars to express brand identity

nousfit warehouse uses lively wood pillars to express brand identity by hideo horikawa architect + associates

using a whimsical tectonic sensibility, hideo horikawa architect + associates have designed a warehouse and workshop for a professional shampoo manufacturer that manifests the company’s fundamental aim to create strong healthy hair. raw wooden pillars exuberantly cross, soar and dance to robustly express brand identity as well as evoke the abstracted image of hair akimbo. the form is streamlined into a angular composition of structural tendrils that puncture the roof and obliquely meet the ground. the metaphor-ridden framework remains laden with architectural ideas; light moves across the beams-turned-filaments and creates a layered skin of shadows that penetrates interior spaces. interiors are fitted with simple, cross joined shelves that allow a different perspective of the pillars and break up the otherwise industrial landscape. the structural members literally connect interior and exterior spaces as they move through several building systems, including the shattered orthogonal pattern of metal grooves that characterize the second level glazing. in creating a relationship between the built form and the conceptual crux of the company’s operations, the architecture supersedes ideas about enclosure and becomes a tool for communication.